One thing I forgot to ask.
Is this season the first time they have had so many artists? ISTM that they had more artists this year than in past years, which is why they had a couple of shows that cut more than one person.
I only recall them sending two people home once, but they didn’t send home anyone the week before (how very American Idol). Naturally, everyone looked totally flabbergasted when they said they were going to send home two people that week…just like they look completely surprised every week. I swear, at the beginning of the season they must have had everyone stand in front of the camera and just make a bunch of ‘surprised faces’ and then do a bunch of eyrolls so they could drop them in and the stupidest times. I can’t believe some of those people are actually surprised when they show them looking surprised.
Dave: This week, we’re going to have you tattoo a butterfly, based on this tattoo, one of you will be going home
Sausage: :eek:
Me: It’s a competition show, WTF did you think was going to happen.
Oliver:Sausage, that tattoo is amazing, good work man, lots of black.
Me: [wow, that was amazing, I wish he lived in MKE, I’d go to him when I’m ready for my next one]
Scott :mad::mad::mad: [No it didn’t, asshole]
Melissa, [crying]
Halo: :rolleyes:
Every week. But what really gets me is when they all look surprised as soon as Dave says someone is going to get eliminated this week…Someone is going to get eliminated every week.
You are right. There is a lot of fake emotion. In fact, the whole show is fake emotion.
Sausage is the worst, only because of his “wooooooooooooow”,“geeeeeeeeeeee” or whatever his exclamation is… He does it in sort of a loud whisper, and he always has a surprised look on his face, like his doctor stuck a finger up his ass to check his prostate without warning him it was going to happen first.
Navarro: Tonight, we are going to send two artists home.
Sausage: woooooooooow. Geeeeeeeez.
The other thing that makes these shows so hard to watch is that every one of the comments interjected into the show is done after the season is over. So all these folks are flown back in to make comments about what the shows editors have cut out and put into the episode.
Scott was initially one of my favorites, but he has become so arrogant and abrasive, I can’t stand listening to him (or any of the other artist chatter, for that matter) when they all go back to the house. But he was always putting out some of the best tattoos week in and week out.
Scott : dude. I think my tattoo is the best. Sausage, dude, yours sucks.
Sausage in room - I don’t see it that way.
Scott. Whatever dude. All I know is I am in the finals. You are in trouble, Dude.
Sausage: But I’ve been nothing but nice to you!
Cut to Sausage for comment “scott is such an asshole”.
I like your emoticon conversation better.
Oh well. I do enjoy the artwork and appreciate the talent these people have to create art on skin. And next week is the final, so That’s good. I cannot imagine getting a 36 hour tattoo on my back, but each one of these guys can draw, so I expect some great tattoos.
My favorite finals tattoos were Sarah Miller’s (that crazy girl from a couple of seasons ago). She drew Valkyrie and Odin (I think) and they were awesome. The only thing that I didn’t like was she made it two separate tattoos and not one, which for the final piece is, INO, the better way to go.
I wonder if Dunbar is coming for the live final? I hope they have metal detectors at the door!
I doubt it. Assaulting a judge is probably a one way ticket out of the show.
I didn’t understand why he even got voted back. None of his pieces were compelling in any way and many were flat out bad. His neck tattoo freaks me out, so I was happy to see him leave.
He does have a bad neck tattoo.
He just screamed psycho. His conspiracy theories were strange on the one hand, but on the other, I could see why he was getting so mad at Navarro. But I agree with you. His tattoos weren’t exactly strong, and I think he could have been sent home weeks before his shoving match.
Nitpick: Dunbar had it in for Nunez, not Navarro.
I’ve been watching, and they have seriously amped up the drama this year from previous seasons. I have to say, at this point I prefer watching Best Ink instead. I wrote it off as a weak copycat at first, but I really like it better now.
I’ve heard that Best Ink is better but I don’t get that channel. I’ve been watching since season 2 and this is the first season that the four who were clearly the best made the final four. I didn’t realize that I was rooting for Halo to make the finals until he was cut. That said, I like Sausage’s work the best so I’m rooting for him. (For the person that asked, I hear that his nickname is because his actual last name is Frank) The whining doesn’t bother me as much as the way Scott treats the canvasses. Mattie impressed me initially but has been getting worse and worse. I also don’t understand why anybody would come on a show like this and create drama. Don’t they realize that only one person can actually win but if you do quality work and don’t piss off the viewers, you are much more likely to get business. The show is great free advertising-take advantage! (See Tommy, runner-up from season 1 who is now on tattoo nightmares and I am sure has a booming business).
I’ve been watching on and off, and I’m a big fan of Sausage. I do have to look away during the critiques because the editing of the reactions and eye-rolling is so obviously fake. I can’t imagine sitting for 35 hours for the back pieces – that will be quite a reveal.
I’ve been watching this show since the first episode of the first season, and I’ve got to say that this season has been the best one so far precisely because the top four were just so tight and I was very happy to see all four of them make it to the penultimate episode.
That said, I was disappointed to see Halo go, since I really wanted to see him in the final, but he rightfully deserved to go. Halo’s issue isn’t his art or his technique, it’s his decisions, and he shot himself in the foot when he did a second tatoo that was so similar to his first. This is something that the judges have been harping on since the first season, that they want to see the artists challenge themselves and show versatility. For instance, in the very first season in the final episode, they were given two master canvases, one where they were asked to tattoo their strength and one where they were given free reign. The guy who won was a master of black and grey, so his second he chose to do a color piece, the guy who came in second (and now has his own show tattoo nightmares) chose to do a portrait since he was critiqued harshly for one earlier in the season, and the guy who came in third was a master of Japanese and just did two Japanese pieces.
Now, obviously, there’s always the argument that the canvas got exactly what he/she wanted, but I don’t think that holds much water. Obviously, there are ones that are just unwilling to work with the artist and they have to wear it, but the way I see it is that, like with any other commissioned piece of art, there has to be trust placed in the artist, his talent, his vision, and his ability. Sometimes a canvas has a vision of what they want, but ultimately it won’t look as good as they think it might or the artist can give them further inspirations or show them something they didn’t even know they wanted until they saw it. So, in this case, Halo could have worked with the canvas and tried to find something else to put into the piece to make it special and show greater artistic versatility.
I think Matti could have gone home too, since his cover-up was pretty meh, but he’s shown a greater degree of versatility and has more wins under his belt, even if he’s a little inconsistent. And, obviously, Scott had to screw up pretty hard to go home since the judges have shown him a lot of favor, even when I felt like it’s not as good as they did.
So, that all said, my money is on Sausage, not because he’s the “good guy” and Scott is the “bad guy” but I feel like he’s been the most consistent, and even when he’s gotten negative critiques, I think they were in the context that it was below his ability, not because it was below the other tattoos. Though, I will say that I think that whole dragonhead tattoo with Matti was a mess, but I blame that moe on Matti since it seems to me that he let him take the artistic design lead on it. I feel like Scott is a little overrated, he’s fallen from favor as the competiton has gotten tighter, and sometimes his arrogance has led him to make some poor decisions. Matti I just don’t think is at the same level as the other two, he’s pulled out a few really good tattoos, but I think with them all getting 35 hours, it is going to end up going to the most consistent artists.
Just watched the finale.
Fuck Scott.
I’m glad he got booed at the end. I was really rooting for Sausage.
Also, I don’t know if they were nervous because it was live or if they just do a lot of takes on the regular show but it was pretty rough to watch. Especially Oliver, he took a lot of long pauses. Chris wasn’t too bad and while Dave wasn’t too bad, I suppose he has the most experience in front of a live audience and cameras, even if it isn’t like this.
What a disappointment.
The show was so predictable. I told my wife exactly what was going to happen, from who the fans would vote into the final, to who the winner was going to be.
This show has jumped the shark for me, and here are my reasons why:
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although I thought the best four artists were in the last episode before the final 3, I thought Halo got screwed. The reason they said they critiqued him so hard was because his cover-up on the breast cancer survivor was a flower tattoo. The woman who came in with the cover-up that wasn’t a cover up specifically asked for flowers, and she gave him a specific list of flowers. His tattoo was amazing, and should have put him in the finals.
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IMO, there WAS favoritism shown to Scott, especially toward the end. His last 3 tattoos were not very good, and yet, they let him skate.
1st tattoo was that Japanese art piece. It was horrid. To this day, I cannot tell what in the hell that was supposed to be. He should have been sent home on that tattoo, but based on the fact that Melissa had never won a challenge, I guess I could see Scott skating by with one bad effort. However, the week with the final 4 was blatant favoritism.
His stupid butterfly/mosquito/whatever-the-fuck he put in that poor woman’s breasts was just awful. Easily the worst piece of the day, IMO. And yet, the judges still praised the tattoo, telling him it was great work. I didn’t see what they saw, and it was so small… He could have done that in 2 hours. It was just what the woman wanted… Ok, But it didn’t rise to the level of the other artists efforts.
Then, his cover-up… You could still see the tattoo underneath his new tattoo! By definition, he did not meet the challenge, and everyone else did. And everyone else was a very strong artist. Scott should have been sent packing. Those last 3 tattoos by Scott were flat out bad, and I couldn’t understand the favorable critiques.
If they had to keep Scott, then Send home Matti for that terrible cover-up piece, which looked like a big black blob/tumor coming out of the head of his “other” Tattoo. Honestly, i am no tattoo expert, but I like what I like, and cover-up tattoo LOOKED like a cover-up.
So, the “fans” got to cote one of the artists into the final. How lame was that? No matter who it was, the decision was already made. So the audience’s vote had absolutely NO impact on the winner. It just sent Matti home first in the final. Big deal. Scott had already been chosen the winner.
As for the final tattoos, I didn’t like any of them, but Sausages was the least offensive. Scott’s was the worst IMO, i hated that heart surrounded by the yellow, with the two arrows through it. It just looked disjointed, with different elements all over that back, with no real thread tying them together.
The thing i really noticed was that tephey didn’t give us home viewers a chance to look at the final pieces nearly as much as they have in the past, which makes me womder why? Were they all bad in their own way? Or was Scott’s full of errors snd they didn’t want to show them because the TV audience would have noticed them with a harder look?
I don’t know. Sausage’s back piece I liked the best, but when that woman moved her shoulder, the face distorted quite a bit and made the tattoo less appealing.
As far as Matti’s piece went, I didn’t really like the looks of it. The scales or whatever that was on the top of the piece, going across the top of the guy’s back didn’t make much sense to me. I am going to go to the website and see if i can get a better look at the 3 final tattoos.
All in all, I thought it was a terrible season, wrapped up with the worst final episode of the show, and the worst winner was crowned Ink Master.
My choice? It would have been Halo, but since he didn’t make the finals (and he was robbed!), I think I would have had to give it to Sausage, even though he wasn’t exactly my favorite artist.
And they announced the format for next season, which will be a “rivals” season. Already pre-designed drama, and I can’t imagine sitting through an entire season of phony arguments, phony physical confrontations, constant head-shaking, eye-rolling, and manufactured drama.
Nope. Count me out for next year.
And I will concur with Hal Briston’s sentiments.
I couldn’t have said it better.
What an asshole that guy is. I would never go to him for a tattoo (not that i would anyway, but I’m speaking hypothetically). I wouldn’t want that dick putting ink on my body.
The one with the tattoo artists, right? I don’t watch it, but let me know if they ever do a tattoo of an army of Hervé Villechaizes playing the bagpipes.
Agreed. The show was very choppy. I wish they would have made it 90 minutes, if not 2 hours. Dave had to cut off too many interesting conversations, but I really wanted more time with the three final canvases. I just didn’t get a great look at any of them.
Oh, and finally, WTF is with Oliver Peck and that stupid sigh he has to make with his hands? Does that mean something besides “I am a short, over 40 guy who has a strange attachment to toothpicks.”?
Any idea what he does that for?
They could have made it 30 minutes. The conversations Dave cut off were the same arguments they’ve been having all season and since, ultimately, the judges picked the winner and not the Twitterverse, we didn’t even need the show to be live. As for seeing the canvases, I agree we didn’t get much time with them, but I just waited until they did a good closeup and paused it.
Also, I call BS on there being a ‘hidden’ Fibonacci Spiral in Matti’s Tattoo.
I think he has a ‘sorta spiral’ with small scales, going to bigger scales going to feathers that increase in size. But I’d be surprised (and maybe I’m wrong, I didn’t measure it) if the ratio of each one of those, to the next one is 1:1.618, which is the golden ratio.
Great point. However, the whole show would have lost its purpose.
Which would have been fine by me, FTR.
for instance, why do we need to see all the contestants again? That is just to discuss the season and rehash the same arguments, as you correctly point out. Bringing back Kyle Dunbar made me believe now more than ever that much of that was staged. Neither one of them appeared upset when it was happening. If you have ever seen or been in a real confrontation, usually one if not both people are shaking a bit, their adrenaline kicking in and kind of giving the person a jolt of speed. They quake a bit, and their voice tends to waver. When. I watched that confrontation episode again tonight, it just seemed very staged and phony. Dunbar, as unstable as he seemed, should have never been permitted on a set with Navarro if he was off. He could have taken him out on live TV if he wanted to! (Now THAT would have been memorable reality TV.)
And the twitter questions, with the reading of “hashtag” was tiresome. I despise twitter, and I really despise how they used it tonight. Also, I don’t know what Taco Bell paid for their sponsorship, but to watch last year’s winner do a tattoo live on the show was equally pointless.
There was a ton of unnecessary filler, and I agree it could have easily have been 30 minutes, with a good long look at each master canvas. I didn’t think to tape it, but I believe it is on demand, so I will watch it and pause as you did on each tattoo and see which one is the best, IMO.
I also caught a few of the episodes from the season that they ran as a marathon before tonights final, and I could have sworn some of the head shaking was the same clip just cut out and pasted in different episodes. The show has taken on a whole new dimension of suck when it comes to manufactured drama/crap. I know people love that stuff, but I hate it.
There were also a couple of staged arguments that made me wonder if those people would be paired up for next season.
Joey P, do you have all the pictures of each back like the one you kinked to?
That is a great picture, and I see so much more in that tattoo that I didn’t see tonight. I’d love to see the other ones.
I will give my own critique of the tattoos after seeing them all.
And I agree, I don’t see any fibonacci sequence.
The 35 hour master canvas piece took 3 months, add to that how many episode before that Kyle walked off and you can guess that he’s been gone for 4-6 months. I wondered if he’d be shaking a little too, between how long he’s been gone and the fact that the $100K is off the table and that they probably had him and Chris kiss and make up before the cameras even got turned on and I’m guess a lot of his rage is gone. This wasn’t the episode to end up with a fistfight. If they wanted to, I’m sure they could have made it that way. Chris knew how to push his buttons. He could have just said something like “Hey man, most of your tattoos really sucked, we had to push you to do your best, you were only back because America wanted you back, not us”, then they would have had a fight. OTOH, Jason and Josh clearly still looked like they wanted to rip each other’s heads off.
They always put everything on their website:
Thanks for the link.
My critique:
Obviously, they had a theme to work with, whatever it was, because the tattoos are too similar to have come from three separate brains. I don’t know what the theme was, but I’ll see if I can find it. I’m guessing something about bad relationships, with the torn out hearts and arrows through the heart.
But anyway -
I don’t know enough about tattoos to judge them from any angle other than if I like it or not, and when I look at all three of these, they are too close quality-wise for me to make any definitive statements. They are all very good, IMO, quality-wise.
With that said,
Sausage - i like the coloring on his the best, as each element is very easy to figure out what it is supposed to be just on a quick glance. I am not a big fan of the woman’s ribbon-like hair, and I don’t like the angle in which her boobs seem to go off to the left, while the necklace is pointing straight down from her neck. To me, the mid-point of her shirt, and where her cleavage should be should line up closely with the dangling part of the necklace, and it doesn’t. That makes the layout of her chest, head and necklace look “off” to my eye.
I am also not a big fan of that green and purple ribbon around her left hand holding the heart, and I don’t like the way the heat looks, with that dark, gray-blue blob sitting on top of that bloody red mess.
I like the woman’s face and eyes, and I love the bird with the yellow sun behind the head. I am not crazy about the blue outlining the sun and part of the bird and its wing, but I guess I can understand why he put it in. Without it, the sun might have faded in with the girl’s back.
Scott - i dislike the coloring of this one right from the start. The green and orange with her hands and the snakes is not pleasant to look at, and I think he over-did the background shading. The butterflies, in particular, get lost in that shading, which is much too dark, especially between the girl’s hand and face.
The heart looks anatomically correct (I think) and is the strongest element of this piece, but I don’t care for the yellow-orange shading behind it. It makes it look like a stand-alone element that could have already been on this person’s body, and. Ot part of his master canvas layout.
The girl’s neck also looks too skinny for her hear, and i guess that is because the neck isn’t finished. But it looks out of proportion to the size of her head.
I do like her eyes, i think he did a nice job capturing that vacant, soulless look he was going for. And the flower in her head is nicely done.
But I just don’t like his color choices. Maybe it is me, but the reddish, blue/grayish shading in the girls face against the orange and green of the hands and snake don’t stand out enough for me to know what I am looking at with a quick glance. The colors don’t complement each other, but instead look like they clash to my eye.
Matti - when I first looked at this piece, I loved the top half of it. Then, when. I looked at the bottom, I couldn’t figure out why he put a man’s ass underneath the woman’s face. Then I realized it was her chest! :smack: Her boob cleavage looked like the crack of a guys butt, and that made NO sense to me at all, but once my brain turned it around I figured out why it didn’t look correct. The cleavage is in the right spot in relation to the woman’s shoulder, but the woman’s neck is twice as long as it should be, and it looks too muscular. The hair/shadowing make it look like there are neck muscles and an Adam’s apple behind the snake head. The snake head is nice, but I hate the blue mouth. It makes that part of the tattoo look too dark and muddled. The body of the snake doesn’t look realistic either, and it is almost crushed in half around her neck. And. I don’t understand the red/yellow shading around the bottom of the snake. One of those things looked like a tentacle on an octopus’s arm when I first looked at it.
I love the wing, and the feather work on this tattoo really stands out to me. Ot is my favorite part of any of the three tattoos. The only problem is, I don’t know what it is connected to. And the red veil between the wing and the woman’s head is nice, but again, it doesn’t seem to have any purpose other than to separate the head from the wing.
All in all, they all have pros and cons, and if I had to pick an order, it would be Sausage, Matti and Scott, but the margins are very small.
I don’t think my dislike of Scott skewed my critique, because the truth is, I really didn’t care who won the show. His is just the most difficult to read, except for that crazy heart sitting in front of that yellow-orange shade blob.
Anyone else?
I’d especially like to hear from someone else and what they think of Scott’s coloring. Especially if it didn’t offend your eyes like it offended mine.